Sounder

The onscreen credits include the written statement: "Taj Mahal's songs copyright 1972 Blackwood Music, Inc., courtesy of Columbia Records." The music credits end with the statement: "And special thanks to John Williams." A written credit reads: "Sounder was filmed in its entirety on location in St. Helena and East Feliciana Parishes in Louisiana. We wish to thank Sheriff Arch V. Doughty, Judge William T. Bennett, The St. Helena Parish School Board and all of the other people of these areas who made this film possible." Although the actress' name is spelled "Merle Sharkey" in the onscreen credits, all contemporary sources list her as "Myrl." Yvonne Jarrell's name is spelled "Jarrel" in the opening credits.
       As noted onscreen, Sounder was based on the 1969 novella of the same name by William H. Armstrong, which won a Newberry Award in 1970. In the book, the characters have no names. While much of the film's action hews closely to book, in the novel the boy lives for a year with the teacher, and the action ends with the death of Sounder and the father, who was partially paralyzed by his accident. While the book centers on the family's concern for the dog, screenwriter Lonne Elder III stated in a November 1972 interview in the New Watts Awakening that he preferred to focus on the family's daily survival. In the interview, Elder noted that he at first refused the assignment, but producer Robert B. Radnitz and director Martin Ritt, who approached him after having seen one of his plays, convinced him to work with them. "I wanted to keep Sounder...accurate in its historical context, and not go off on any present-day fantasies," he added.
       Sounder marked the first collaboration between Radnitz and toy company Mattel. A July 1971 Daily Variety news item stated that Mattel would back eight productions with budgets of $750,000-$1,000,000 each. In January 1973, Radnitz told Hollywood Reporter that Mattel gave him complete freedom in making the film and did not view a print until Sounder was completed.
       According to a modern source, the filmmakers originally intended to shoot in Macon, GA, but racial tensions caused them to move to Louisiana. In addition to location shooting in Louisiana's East Feliciana and St. Helena parishes, an August 1971 Daily Variety news item mentions Baton Rouge as a location. Ritt hired many locals to play small roles, including 12-year-old Jarrell, who played "Josie Mae," Judge William Thomas Bennett and Reverend Thomas M. Phillips, the local Baptist preacher. Many of the locations were found on site, including the schoolhouse, sharecropper's shack and church. As noted in a September 20, 1971 Hollywood Reporter news item, a hurricane delayed the production for several days, due to flooding and high winds.
       In a modern interview, Ritt related that he took an eighty percent pay cut to direct the film. Kevin Hooks, who played "David Lee Morgan," was the son of Negro Ensemble Company founder Robert Hooks. Kevin and his younger brother Eric made their feature film debuts in Sounder, as did blues singer Taj Mahal. In a January 2003 New York Times article, Hooks stated that the scene of "Rebecca Morgan" running to meet the returning "Nathan Lee Morgan" was based on the finale of the 1925 King Vidor film The Big Parade. The article designates that image as the film's most famous.
       In May 1972, trade papers announced that Twentieth-Century Fox had made a deal to distribute Sounder, which studio president Gordon Stulberg called "a landmark production." The film screened out of competition on August 13, 1972 at the Atlanta Film Festival. It had its premiere on 24 September in New York, then opened in Los Angeles on October 12, 1972. Over the following year, it was chosen as the American entry in several foreign film festivals, including those in Tehran, Moscow and Pakistan.
       Sounder received warm reviews and almost universal praise as a welcome antidote to the contemporaneous wave of black films, most of which were considered low quality, low budget and exploitative. The film's sensitive, intelligent depiction of a loving family was hailed as a banner accomplishment for black filmmakers and audiences. A September 1972 Daily Variety article proclaimed that the picture had been "for good or ill, singled out to test whether the black audience will respond to serious films about the black experience rather than the `super black' exploitation features." As noted in the Washington Post review, despite popular skepticism that the film could be a financial success and the belief that "the black film market is exclusively an action and exploitation market," the picture was a major box-office success. Made for less than $1 million, by September 1973, as reported in a Los Angeles Times article, Sounder had made $15 million. A September 1973 Los Angeles Times article stated that subsequent Radnitz/Mattel films, including Where the Lillies Bloom (1974), would be financed by the profits made by the film.
       Some of the picture's success was due to its innovative marketing strategy. As laid out in a November 1972 Variety article, Fox focused on group sales in major cities and targeted religious organizations and schools. A January 1973 Hollywood Reporter article added that Radnitz personally visited thirty-five cities and held over 500 screenings, with sixty simultaneous sneak previews held in New York. The religious establishment came out in favor of the film, with an endorsement by the Catholic Film Office and a study guide for religious educators created by the National Council of Churches. The Variety article noted that Fox also wrote a study guide, prepared by Dr. Roscoe Brown, Jr., director of Afro-American Affairs at New York University. Fox spent over $1 million on promoting the film, according to a March 1973 Variety article. Despite this, a May 1972 Daily Variety article noted that Radnitz hoped to distribute further productions by himself.
       In addition to critical praise, the film received numerous awards and accolades. It garnered Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Writing (Screenplay-Based on Material from Another Medium), Best Actor (Paul Winfield) and Best Actress (Cicely Tyson). The nominations were landmarks for black talent: Along with Suzanne De Passe, who wrote 1972's Lady Sings the Blues, Elder was the first black writer nominated; Winfield was the third black actor honored (after Sidney Poitier and James Earl Jones) and, along with fellow 1972 nominee Diana Ross (for her role in Lady Sings the Blues) Tyson marked the third black woman nominated [In 1955, Dorothy Dandridge had received a nomination for Best Actress for the 1954 film Carmen Jones]. In addition, Tyson and Hooks garnered Golden Globe nominations, Ritt was nominated for the DGA Award, Elder was nominated for the WGA Award and Taj Mahal earned a Grammy Award nomination for Album of Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture.
       Ritt stated in a modern interview that although he was originally resistant to casting Tyson, considering her "too pretty" for the role, she convinced him that she could play Rebecca. Her performance was singled out by many critics for its gravity and restrained quality. Among her many commendations, she won the National Society of Film Critics and National Board of Review awards for Best Actress.
       Sounder was also recognized by myriad social organizations. The film received a special commendation in March 1973 from the California State Assembly, and in October 1972, was lauded on the floor of the national Congress by Hon. Charles C. Diggs, Jr. of Michigan, who declared the film "a turning point in the art of the motion picture." As Roger Ebert noted in the Chicago Sun-Times review, Coretta Scott King commented that the character of "David Lee Morgan" reminded her of her late husband, Dr. Martin Luther King. Ritt referred to Sounder in a modern interview as his most financially and possibly most artistically successful film.
       Despite the acclaim, however, some detractors emerged. Vincent Canby wrote in New York Times that Sounder's appeal derived more from its superiority to most "black" films than from its inherent excellence, and called it patronizing. Another writer published an article in the November 12, 1972 issue of New York Times lambasting the film for its lack of realism, stating that "blacks still know too little about each other...while white filmmakers are laughing their heads off all the way to the bank." Elder wrote a letter to the editor countering both critiques, stating that the characters were based on people he knew, and labeling Canby's tone "condescending hauteur." Other reviewers felt that the film was overly simplistic and sentimentalized, while the New Watts Awakening critic stated: "While Sounder no doubt is a milestone, much of its effect is diluted by keeping the action detached and isolated in its historical setting."
       Radnitz and Mattel went on to make six more feature films and a television movie together. In January 1983, Radnitz sued Mattel, Inc. to stop the barter-based sale of the eight films he produced with them. The article noted that Mattel purchased Radnitz' stock in the company in 1974, and the agreement at that time stipulated that the film could only be sold on a cash basis. The disposition of the suit is not known.
       A sequel, entitled Sounder, Part 2, was released in 1976, written by Elder and directed by William A. Graham. Teddy Airhart reprised his role as "Mr. Perkins" in that film. A musical theater remake was announced in trade publications in February 1984, with Radnitz stating that Louis Gossett, Jr. was in discussions to star, and in a December 1995 Daily Variety news item Radnitz reported that he was talking to jazz musician Wynton Marsalis to score the musical. However, a theatrical version was never produced. A remake aired on ABC's Wonderful World of Disney on January 19, 2003. Directed by Hooks, it starred Daniel Lee Robertson III, Carl Lumbly and Suzzanne Douglass, with Winfield playing a teacher. Hooks stated in a January 2003 New York Times article on the remake that watching director of photography John A. Alonzo during the shooting of Sounder had inspired him to become a director.